I was thinking of this yesterday while downloading all these audio books on KaZaa. It’s remarkable how many of them are religious in nature. I was actually quite surprised to find the wealth of stuff on here that I did. Especially great sources, such as Alan Watts.

And I was thinking about how with mp3s, with songs, with albums of music, I’ll listen to them over and over again, especially while I’m writing or doing some other work on the computer. It makes the time go by easier, it keeps some part of me happy while the other parts focus on working.

But then to listen to these people speaking, its difficult to concentrate on writing. It’s because their words are not dressed up in music. Their message is not encoded in song. Imagine if you took the core messages of all the great works of human literature and somehow made them into a wonderful elaborate cycle of songs. How easily their messages and deep truths about humanity would touch people.

Imagine. Fortunately for us, that’s what all music is. It is codified human knowledge. Encapsulated human experience. And every time we scroll through our mp3 or album collection, we are being inundated with all the great works of the human mind & spirit. All the wisdom from centuries distilled down to us.

Even shitty music. Even crap they play twice an hour on the radio. Even it contains the greatness of human knowledge. Or at least some aspect of it. Some facet. Some local manifestation. Consider next time you put on some music, what great wisdom tradition of humanity you are (maybe not consciously) exposing yourself to.

Bret, I think that’s the best rebuttal I can give to your comments from that earlier post, which I said I would address.